====== Topic Name ====== Anti-Displacement Strategies ====== Participants ====== * Darren Smith * Meridith Levy * Kevin Donoghue * Darby Bradley * Melissa Manka * Carrie Boron * Todd Baylston * Charlotte Weber * Eric Young ====== Big Idea ====== ====== Notes ====== * Darby: Story-- went out West--met a guy who started a land trust, and was really discouraged. * Kevin: City Councilor of Portland, ME--- looking at protection of islands, working on Inclusionary Zoning to build affordable housing in new dev't; youth displacement; nightlife displacement. The "new urbanist" ideal sometimes conflicts with lifestyle of existing Portland residents, bars, nightlife; worried about working waterfront- protecting access to groundfishing- worried Gov. will make this into Disney Land; concerned about families getting displaced--young people without kids and retirement community are moving into city--school enrollment is dropping, need more protection for families as we plan for growth; * Darren: Coming at this from urban perspective: D.C.--urban displacement and gentrification. Amenities that get added to community are ones people deserve to have--but then the areas become more desirable, property value goes up, people get displaced to other neighborhoods without amenities. Maybe answer: every neighborhood should have amenities! Affordable housing, one strategy to keep people in neighborhoods, but not entirely successful. City of D.C. used to be 75% African American, now 53%. Adams Morgan and Columbia Hts.--same issue as Portland, people moving in and wanting to close * Carrie: Study Circles Resource Center-- national, nonprofit organization helps local communities develop their own ability to organize large-scale and diverse dialogues structured to lead community change. (www.studycircles.org) * Joe: Stillwater, NY-- issue is about farmers getting displaced. If trend of loss continues, won't have the critical base, businesses, etc. to be able to sustain agricultural community. Challenges--land values with pressure of development are going up, but with Ag Stewardship Org, Land Trust, buy dev't rights from farmer, and they retain ability to continue to farm on land, etc. But they can't keep up with market, so can't offer as much to farmer. Land is long-term investment for farmer, like 401K. * Melissa: Live in Jackson, by Essex-- house prices are going up, bedroom community of Burlington. Prices have gotten so high-- now no longer any youth. No one under 40 can move in, not even to rent. School population is dropping drastically. Older population can't afford to stay--high taxes, etc. Push to sell house to make money. Talk about affordable housing incentives, but are at a loss for what to do. Housing boom--before under 100K, and now it’s over 600K. * Todd: Works for greening education, community development in Philly-- with 40,000 vacant lots, how can you have benevolent process to attract new residents, without disrupting existing social networks--thorny with racial tensions, etc. Trying to think about big picture for how to stabilize large tracts of land. Demolition of properties, as policy, hasn't led to anything more than temporary strategy-- haven't triggered the new development needed. Have some open space, but more ad hoc cleaning and greening, most likely a result of active neighbors, not part of big picture plan to do pre-development greening. We lose tree cover because we lose more than what we plant-- people are worried about displacing people as result of tree planting--if property value would go up. Eminent Domain is strategies for affordable housing, which is controversial. Title to many of the vacant properties is unclear--hard to understand tangle of ownership, so makes "greening" more challenging. * Meridith: Somerville, MA--neighborhood scale, in a low-income community, with high percentage of new immigrants, getting squeezed by market pressures, EJ issues, etc. People who live there deserve to have amenities and benefits that they identify as desirable, but with existing market pressures that may be exacerbated by changes that make neighborhood more desirable, how do we make sure the people who are working for these changes don't get squeezed out? **How can you accommodate new residents without displacing existing residents?** Split rate tax rates? Pittsburgh has this--Philly is looking at this. Separate land from buildings. Could control sprawl. New York has ag districts, and people get tax breaks for land. Town, County, State tax relief; not schools. Maine: working waterfront has tax relief, and woodlots, but not farming. Vermont has current use program for farmland and managed forestland, based on capitalized income stream. VT has statewide property tax--intended to redistribute tax rates for school education across the state. Worked pretty well, it's very complicated. It's income based, but not a perfect system. VT--school population dropping, families with children can't afford to live there. But communities beginning to realize we need kids, so we need affordable housing, now more on people's minds--this equity piece is way for community to get to hang on to school, which is a central gathering place for community. VT has joint program that funds AH and Land preservation. A statewide fund--housing and conservation trust fund, can be applied to this. Strong coalition for this, the affordable housing coalition has done a good job to frame this as workforce development, healthy community. Lewiston, ME--youth led program--involved in dialogue with community to deal with question of how to keep youth, help pump new ideas into community. YADA--check out MySpace ([[http://www.myspace.com/YADA2007]]) to learn more. Youth are coming up with ideas for youth to live and stay in the community. VT--have been able to conserve a lot of land, but beginning to have an estate problem, investors can afford to outbid for farmers land. Created something called Option to Purchase Agriculture Value, at time of sale. Want people to have incentive to stay in home, keep it up, but also make it affordable to next generation. How to keep farm viable without adding so much value that next generation can't buy. Community land trusts throughout state doing mixed housing, so you have some affordable housing, some market rate, avoiding "projects". Issues come up--need organization ready to administer it, monitor it, and make sure it's perpetually affordable. Would these issues be alleviated if housing market tanks? Goes both ways, and could be short term. As baby boomers age with affluence, will continue to purchase second homes, so will probably keep the market up, doesn't help these rural and desirable places to live. Property transfer tax, if you buy a home or property tax, money goes into housing and conservation fund. Real estate transfer tax, but should be taxed hard. Could graduate it based on time--the sooner you flip property, the higher the tax. But seller gets hit. Homestead program in D.C.-- incentive program to stay in home. Institutionalized reverse mortgage--if your property gains in value so much that taxes are burden, you can tap into equity of home whereby bank pays you cash, buying into your equity. But in exchange could be given to affordable housing for future--that becomes incentive. Transfer tax, statewide, paid by purchaser, 1/2% into fund. Statewide. First need to figure out what's important to community--as starting point, and then figure out how to go about strategies for affordable housing, etc. Can leverage money from small fund by matching grants, etc. We probably have 35-40 towns that have created local conservation fund. One of the workshops-- Utah experimenting w/ disclosure--dev't of character, decided ability to have hobby livestock--mules, llamas, ostriches, amount regulated by size of lot. With new development, new people don't have same interest, complaining about smell and noise. So, community decided this is component of character-- require that people who move into new subdivisions sign contract that they won't complain about smell, noise, etc. Developer could sign odor easement, or disclaimer--homeowners association to monitor? This is what you get when you move into community. Use conflicts. Westford, VT--doing this as define provisions for subdivisions--this is what comes with the property--such as across from the farm, etc. Subdivision regulations, NY-- plot comes with following conditions. But realtors and lawyers are not disclosing that. If town requires this, could open up to lawsuit. One of concerns is--you can go overboard, people violate terms, go overboard with spreading manure, etc. Need to be careful about taking this too far. Or what if corporate hog farm comes in--need to be careful about how far you go. Work with people who have lived and worked there who can control this identity and protection of what's important in the community. But--what about communities where you have a lot of newcomers who deserve to have their rights protected, needs met. Transience, could be something worth protecting--if that's part of character or heritage or community. Even though people protected may move out. Statewide tax--educational impacts--has that improved? Transfer of wealth a success? Some of the communities will say yes, some of the wealthier communities feel like they have been "dumb downed"--less money for their own school systems. Differential tax rates-- can be complicated with unintended consequences. Maine--on losing end of losing families. **Ideas:** Special use protection is cultural piece of community, like working waterfront, agland, etc. Losing culture quickly, but need to have infrastructure available, and access. People in past have been ready to give up on the market, like local farming, etc.--but then it kicked back in over time. National Security--framework, we need to protect a certain volume of food, so need to protect farmland. Gutting of FDA has led to adverse effects. Food import standards globally have huge impact--foods with pesticides, etc. Once we build our farmland--we've lost this as potential food production for us, key to sustainability of our future. Need to protect watersheds, etc. Dept. of Ag- 80% of money goes west of Mississippi, 80% of that goes to large corporate farms. The same goes for fishing and waterfront. Schools--important to community, priority, way to frame issue of why we need to keep affordable housing, etc. Equalizing poor people spending is only beginning. But home, social problems in urban areas are so severe; people feel defeatism about school district, and move to the suburbs. In Philly--did design process with schools to green schools, but couldn't get anywhere because of the institution. ====== Next Actions ======